Nitrogen Cycle

Nitrogen is a gas . It makes up 71%
of the gases in the atmosphere!
It helps us by keeping living things
 alive so we can eat them ! Here
is how nitrogen dose it. It is called
the nitrogen cycle . First the
nitrogen falls with rain or snow.
Then goes into the dirt and mud.
Bacteria that are on plants make
 this nitrogen edible for the plants.
The nitrogen is turned into compounds.
Then the the plants use it. Animals eat it .
When the animals die the nitrogen goes
 back to the earth . Where it turns into
food for the Plants. Some nitrogen compounds
don't get used because another bacteria takes
them and makes them plain nitrogen. This
nitrogen Then goes back into the atmosphere
to fall down in rain or snow again. This cycle
keeps animals and plants alive so we can eat
them . That is the nitrogen cycle.








Source: Brainpop

Tintin comic book

I have been working on a Tintin comic of my own . It is called the mystery of the secret weapons. In it Tintin , Haddock and snowy investigate Australia and find secret weapons there. I am almost done and am drawing it on my iPad.

Wind

Wind
Wind is moving air. Here is how it happens:
Wind is caused by the sun . The Sun heats the earth
and the warm air rises. Colder air fills the gap while
the warm air is cooling down . This makes a lot of
moving air which is wind! There are many types of
winds like Jet streams ( are fast moving streams of air
that move in circles around the earth ) , Constant winds
( Winds that are constant . The warm air moves toward
the poles and cools off ) and trade winds ( these winds
move toward the equator. ) 

Wind Energy
Pepole have been using wind as a power source for
ages. The first windmills were in Persia. they were
used for grinding wheat . These don't look like the
European windmills but they looked like eggbeaters.
The modern ones are not for grinding wheat but are
for making electricity. The wind turns the windmill
and a generator makes the movement into electricity.
In wind farm you can see lots of windmills.


Wind Storms
There are many storms made 
by wind like hurricanes and tornadoes 
  
Hurricanes
Are Storms made over hot water . The Hot water heats
the air . Then cold air fills the gap making a small storm
gather over the hot water. The storm grows in power as
it is moving over the hot water and winds fly over it .
When the winds are faster then 73 miles per hour it is a
Hurricane.

5 Over 157 mph
_|____________
4 130-156 mph
_|___________
3 111-129 mph
_|___________
2 96-110 mph
_|___________
1 74-95 mph


Hurricanes can do a lot of damage . When they hit land
they lat out their water as rain and have high winds.
Tornadoes  
Are fast winds in a whirling column .
They come out of thunderstorms . Th
ey can be very destructive . Tornadoes
are measured by something called the
Fujita scale

F0 | weak
F1 | medium
F2 | stronger
F3 | bad
F4 | destructive
F5 | Greatly destroying


Source: Brainpop

The youngest Templar.

The youngest Templar is a series I have been reading . It has three books .I have read 2 of them and am reading the third on page 103 .The author is called Michael P. Spradlin.

The book is about a orphan called Tristan who became a squire of a Templar knight called Sir Thomas. When he and the other Templar knight and squires were about to get killed by a army of Saladin's men, Sir Thomas gives him the holy grail and tells him to bring it to a monk in Scotland. On his way there he meets friends that accompany him on his journey. He is pursued by a evil Templar knight called Sir Hugh.

Sir Hugh wants the grail for himself. They encounter many hardships along the way .So far they are in the middle of England heading north to Scotland. Richard the Lionheart's mother said that Tristan
had claims to the throne.

The book has its version of Robin Hood in it with an archer called Robard Hode.

The Book is placed in the time of the crusades.

The Templars were a group of knights fighting for Jerusalem but they were loyal to the pope not to the king. They also believed artifacts such as the holy grail would help them win. In the end though Saladin wins as we know from history.

The Ozone layer

 Ozone is a gas with molecules

that are made out of 3 oxygen

atoms. The Oxygen that  we

 breath has 2. The Ozone layer

protects us from the suns radiation.

It is in the Stratosphere. There is

a holes in the Ozone layer over the

poles. The hole was made by Ozone

destroying chemicals. These chemicals

were in house items. The chemicals

take 2 or 3 years to get to the Stratosphere.

But when they get there they thin the Ozone.

Countries around the world decided to stop

using the Ozone destroying chemicals .

The hole will heal itself in 50 years or so if

 most people stop using ozone destroying

chemicals






Source: Brainpop

Earth and the atmosphere

Earth
Is the only know planet that has life. Why ? Here is your answer.
We are not to far away or to close to the sun ,making temperature
just right to live in. The atmosphere also helps . It traps the suns
 heat rays but deflects ray that could hurt us. The atmosphere is made
 up of gases that include oxygen and nitrogen . Many living things
need oxygen to survive including us :). There are 5 layers of the atmosphere
 (the higher you go the thinner the air gets)  they are :


The Exosphere_________________________________________
Is the highest and thinnest layer                                                                                                        

The Thermosphere   _____________________________________
Is the hottest layer. There is very thin air here to .

The Mesosphere ________________________________________
Here is where most meteors get dissolved. This is the coldest layer.

The Stratosphere________________________________________
The Ozone layer is here.

The Troposphere________________________________________
This is the lowest layer . This is also called the weather layer.
--/\______________/\____/\_______________|


Another thing that helps life on earth is the water. 71% of the earth is water. All living things need water to survive . Earth is the 5th largest planet in the Solar system making its gravitational pull not to strong or to weak. Earth also has a magnetic field because of the core. Scientist think that the magnetic field defends us from harmful rays.

Source: Brainpop    

Plate Tectonics

Scientists believe that millions of years ago all the continents were one big continent called a Pangaea .
Why do they think this? Because They found the same fossils of one species all over the world .
But the tectonic plates that the continents were on shifted moving the continents to where they are today.
The crust of the earth has many plates that move around on the mantle about 1 or two inches every year.
On the boundaries between the plates lots of stuff happen like volcanoes , mountains and trenches . The plates can do many stuff at the boundaries .Like


Divergent bounds
are plates boundaries where plates move apart .
Molten rock comes up and cools making more plate.

Convergent  bounds 
The plates along the boundaries move toward each other .
Sometimes one plate can move under the other.


Transform bounds
are where two plates move horizontally against each other

Me and my family watched the Croods recently and it had a lot plate movement in it .


Sources: Brainpop

Inside the Earth

The earth has three main parts. The crust the Mantle and the Core

Crust
The crust is the part of the earth we live on .

We can only see the upper part of the crust,

the lower part of the crust is solid rock . 

Mantle
The Mantle is the biggest part of the earth.

The upper mantle is sort of liquid-solid mixture

like hot clay. This lets the plates move and

make earthquakes. The lower mantle is a hot

solid mixture of Iron , Oxygen and other metals

and rocks. Both layers have these things in them.


Core
The core is the center of the earth . The outer

core is hot liquid molten metals . The inner core

is solid from all the pressure of the other layers.

It is made up of iron and metals.


Before the 1900's - 2000's there were many myths
of what was in the earth.


Sources: Brainpop

Comets

Comets are made up of gas dust and ice .

They are in the Oort cloud and the Asteroid belt.

You rarely see a comet in your  life.

When a comet gets close to the sun the ice

start melting. Making a tail or coma around

the ball or nucleus . Sometimes comets smash

into planets or get burned by the sun. One well

know comet is Halley's comet which last came in

2003 and will come again  around 2061. I will be able

to see it ! Halley's comet is named after Edmund Halley

who found the orbit of the comet.  Comets orbit the sun.

They Come close to  it ( that is when we see them )

Then travel far far away like to the Oort cloud .